Oriental Rotary Club

Jim Holley
La Bala Builder’s Log
(Building a Car from Scratch)

Jim Holley, 28-year USN veteran, retired from the Navy as a Senior Chief Petty Officer. Jim is a PADI diving instructor, and charter boat captain. Father to four sons, oldest son Jim III will be retiring from the Air Force, Senior Master Sergeant, and flight engineer/instructor for C-130 aircrafts. Like his Dad Jim III is a car guy. Jim and Deb I. married in 2001, living happily ever after in Minnesott Beach.

Jim has been a car guy for a long time. He started racing quarter midgets at 7, go-karts at 9, and built his first hot rod at 16 while he was a senior in high school. The car was a 1954 MGTF in which Jim managed to squeeze a 301 cubic inch Chevy V8. Jim has held competition license from both the SCCA and the Royal Automobile Club. He has raced everything from antique race cars with the Race Cars of Yesterday Club in Florida, to a Lotus 40, ex Jimmy Clark car, while stationed in Scotland. Jim still enjoys building cars and competing in autocross, track days, and Land Speed Record events.

Developer Steve Graber designed and built the La Bala as an inexpensive, lightweight tube-frame car with an original body design from scratch. Graber began with a Toyota MR2, the basis for his dream car which took him around three years to complete. The result? A track car weighing in at 1.500 lbs – 680kg with a turbocharged 1.6L Toyota powerplant delivering 170HP. Jim’s La Bala is the first with 240 HP GM power. As Jim was building the third La Bala in the U.S. he recalled his mantra: Always remember, ain’t nothing ever as simple as it seems.

Jim’s experience with modifying and building cars brings to mind a recent book Shop Class as Soulcraft: an Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford.
“Philosopher and motorcycle repair-shop owner Crawford extols the value of making and fixing things in this… paean to what he calls manual competence, the ability to work with one’s hands. … our alienation from how our possessions are made and how they work takes many forms: the decline of shop class, the design of goods whose workings cannot be accessed by users (such as recent Mercedes models built without oil dipsticks) … Unlike today’s knowledge worker, whose work is often so abstract that standards of excellence cannot exist in many fields (consider corporate executives awarded bonuses as their companies sink into bankruptcy), the person who works with his or her hands submits to standards inherent in the work itself: the lights either turn on or they don’t, the toilet flushes or it doesn’t, the motorcycle roars or sputters. …” (Amazon.com) Matt Crawford’s remarkable book on the morality and metaphysics of the repairman looks into the reality of practical activity. … a superb combination of testimony and reflection. Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government, Harvard University

Your editor simply could not resist and had to peek at the Stupid.com website for some fantastical seasonal gift-giving ideas.

-For the ladies… tired of boring purses that do nothing for your mundane existence? We can guarantee that your Armadillo Handbag will turn heads and elicit comments like, “Am I seeing things, or is that lady carrying an armadillo handbag?” The stuffed armadillo is made of cloth and is a life-like 13 inches long. There is a zippered pouch on the ‘dillo’s back to hold your keys, makeup, mace, or whatever.
-For golfers… The Big Daddy Driver looks like an oversized driver in your golf bag. But it has an evil secret — Built into the head is an actual, fully-functional weed whacker! You’re playing golf with your buddies, when you slice your ball into the rough. While your friends laugh at your misfortune, you reach for your Big Daddy Driver. Holding it as you would a real golf club, you flip it on and — to their amazement — clear all the grass from around your ball.
–For a cozy winter… a pair of plush, comfy slippers, each featuring a stuffed Sigmund Freud on the front. When you slide your feet into a pair of Freudian Slippers, your anxieties, paranoias, and obsessions seem to melt away. The left side of your brain will thank your right foot, and your brain’s right side will thank your left foot.

Toys for Tots…bring your items to the 14 December program. Bring you PCFLO donations to Partner’s Night 21 December.